If, in reading a passage of Greek or Roman history, you find yourself growing bored, chances are, it is because you do not really understand what was If, in reading a passage of Greek or Roman history, you find yourself growing bored, chances are, it is because you do not really understand what was going on. While pages of troop movements and the names of officers might seem dull to you, I can assure that to some people, these things have meaning. In fact, they can be downright fascinating.
In hopes of becoming more easily fascinated, I was glad to find an edition of this book came free with my burger at The Traveler (along with the Odes of Horace, and I'm always happy that the taste of the clientele there means that the potboilers move like hotcakes but there are always histories and the scant copy of 'The Sadeian Woman' waiting for me).
I was excited to learn all about flanks and cataphracts and cavalry manouvers, but before we even get to that, Warry always gives a list of major sources, which couldn't please me more. I always enjoy having someone in the field let me know what it is worth my time to read, as it saves a lot of searching.
Nor was I disappointed when at last, the cataphracts appeared. This took several chapters, since the book is nicely laid out by period, which makes it helpful as a companion piece. Whether you're about to tackle Caesar's 'Conquest of Gaul' or Thucidydes account of the Pelopenesian War, just turn to the chapter of interest and you'll find a rundown of events and analysis of the units, equipment, and tactics involved.
Warry even throws in a few jokes here or there, and some of those amusing historical anecdotes which no scholar can resist. His style is clear and entertaining, and while he admits that this book is little more than a primer, sometimes, that's what I'm looking for.
Apparently, the original version of this book was illustrated, but the cheap Barnes & Noble edition I happened upon was not, even though a lone reference remains guiding the reader to a figure which does not exist. And that's not the only typographical problem with that particular edition, but I'm hardly complaining. Even without the pictures, the book is a useful and informative companion piece to studies of Classical Rome and Greece....more
The great benefit of a republic is the slowness with which it moves. In America or Rome, the long, careful consideration of matters by fractious, embiThe great benefit of a republic is the slowness with which it moves. In America or Rome, the long, careful consideration of matters by fractious, embittered rivals tend to assure that the only measures which pass are those which are beneficial, or those which are useless. In a dictatorship, much more may be achieved. In little time, a great man may do a great many things, and a lesser man make many errors.
As Tacitus, Machiavelli, Jefferson, or any proponent of the republic will tell you, great men are scarce, but you will never want for the lesser kind. If you marvel at my inclusion of Machiavelli among men of the republic, you may be surprised to hear that the vast majority of his works were against tyranny, and his well-known work about tyrants did not paint them in a very flattering light.
Tacitus' portraits of these Roman tyrants is much less than flattering, echoing Sallust's partisan accounts. After all, Plutarch's example was to paint history in terms of moral lessons, that the past is full of errors we can learn to avoid and of virtues to which we might aspire. But the time of the Annals was one mainly of errors, with virtues serving only to highlight the tragic fates of those who tried to uphold them.
Tacitus also took his Latinate style from Sallust, narrowing it into concise aphorisms which his English translators have come to lament. Things cannot be said as simply, as succinctly, or as precisely in a language so reliant copulas, pronouns, and word order. We may be missing the force of his terse invectives, but for examples, Tacitus never lacks. His is a case study of the craven, sycophantic rule of a series of inadequate monarchs.
For five hundred years, the Roman Republic had ruled, by far the most successful example of such a state. The had survived their enemies, civil wars, and dictators, finally to be undone by the frantic success of their unchecked expansion, which gave their generals the wherewithal to declare themselves king.
The long reign of Augustus showed what a monarch can achieve. His many heirs showed the more common faces of the monarch: debauched, indecisive, paranoid, cruel, incompetent. Despite his claims of objectivism, Tacitus often seems to paint these men more negatively than their actions merit. Certainly, Tiberius is unsure and weak-willed, but Tacitus seeks to ascribe to him a more nefarious character.
It may have been something nebulous which Tacitus could not support with a mere recitation of the facts, or it may be that he sees behind every foul act of a tyrant a willfullness, disguised as it might be by a milder character. Again, he is reminiscent of Sallust, who saw conspiracies everywhere, though it is not an enviable task for a historian to pick the true conspiracies from the fanciful.
I do not think Tacitus needed to embellish the facts; to me, the thoroughly incompetent, frightened ruler is just as threatening as the devious, malicious one. As tyrants, both are equally dangerous to the state.
It is unfortunate that not all of the Annals have survived, though large parts are intact. For those interested, it might be noted that Robert Graves' two novels, 'I, Claudius' and 'Claudius the God' were written to precisely cover the break in the Annals from Caligula to Claudius, ending where Tacitus picks up, again.
As Tacitus himself laments, this period is not the most exciting from the point of view of the historian. There are few great battles or civil wars, few admirable characters, and many vicissitudes, atrocities, tragedies, adulteries, murders, suicides, conspiracies, assassinations, and other mockeries of Rome's former nobility. Then again, some people might find that kind of thing intriguing.
The work is certainly full of unusual stories of a type which are less commonly encountered than the heroism of battle or the benevolence of a good ruler. To anyone looking toward the bredth and scope of roman history, not merely its glories, the Annals are uncommon, if not unique....more
A delightful, colorful, and personal history of the politics of Rome. Clearly, Plutarch was an adherent of the Great Man Theory, and he was lucky to hA delightful, colorful, and personal history of the politics of Rome. Clearly, Plutarch was an adherent of the Great Man Theory, and he was lucky to have plenty of them to choose from.
Plutarch's history is anecdotal, collecting all the common stories about the men who defined Rome (and Greece, in other volumes). It is an unusual way to write a history, or an autobiography, but it has the benefit of telling us a great deal about the empire, its people, and their stories, even if the biographical elements must be taken with a grain of salt.
Plutarch is not as plainly partisan as Sallust, but neither does he achieve the cold detachment of Caesar (whether it was true humility or masterful construction is another debate). Plutarch intends his biographies as odes to the many virtues of man, and instructional book on how to live well, with the implicit assumption that famed, successful men always live well.
This is the main drawback of Plutarch's style: the acceptance of grand, virtuous stories about men, who like all of us, were in the end, only human. He does sometimes include more minute and humorous details, which always help to pleasantly round out his portraits.
Reading these roughly in order, and in comparison with other views from the time (when they exist) is very profitable, and Plutarch gives us a lot of stories that we wouldn't have if not for him. It is a benefit to have them at all, but it is unfortunate that we cannot confirm or compare many of them.
Indeed, the lives of some of these men and the details of their periods are known only by reference to Plutarch, and perhaps some fragments here and there. The collection is vital if one wants any real comprehension of Rome, but it also reminds us just how little of their history survived to reach us.
I'll have to finish the extant Roman lives, and the Greek ones as well. They are certainly worthwhile for any classicist....more
Sallust had a long political career, siding with the populists, who would eventually become the triumvirate of Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey. In many waSallust had a long political career, siding with the populists, who would eventually become the triumvirate of Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey. In many ways, Sallust's history resembles Caesar's memoirs twenty years later, but Caesar's biases are much more difficult to ferret out. If Sallust had been a more clever man, we might have taken his word for it and entered his works as pure history, but his bias is so evident that we can almost fill out the rest of the story by it's absence.
There are fairly self-evident motivations for the men Sallust presents as incorrigible villains, and we may also compare his view of history to Cicero's; for even though they were of like opinion, Cicero tends to be more equitable in his explanations.
This difference between the two authors rather perfectly encapsulates the difference between them as men, and the central point of their disagreement. Cicero was a pacifier, a placator, but one of enough skill and vigor to change his opponent's course in the midst of deference. We might expect him to be in perfect agreement with Ben Franklin who, when once asked for advice by Thomas Jefferson, is supposed to have said "never disagree with anyone".
Sallust, on the other hand, was an incurable idealist. We are treated to long passages on the particular moral qualities a man ought to have and how Sallust's opponents lack them and how Sallust's friends all have them. There is a constant sense of injustice being perpetrated throughout the politic sphere, but it is always by Sallust's political and ideological enemies.
Though the reader rarely doubts such depravity and greed went on, Sallust's self righteous displays of humble innocence strike as false. His history is not informed enough to serve us--indeed, it is filled with errors in dates, places, and people. But neither is his rhetoric so impressive that it saves his tract from being more than the lamentations of a man who retired to complain for posterity's sake.
As a historical view, he is useful, but moreso within the context of other writers....more
Sallust had a long political career, siding with the populists, who would eventually become the triumvirate of Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey. In many waSallust had a long political career, siding with the populists, who would eventually become the triumvirate of Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey. In many ways, Sallust's history resembles Caesar's memoirs twenty years later, but Caesar's biases are much more difficult to ferret out. If Sallust had been a more clever man, we might have taken his word for it and entered his works as pure history, but his bias is so evident that we can almost fill out the rest of the story by it's absence.
There are fairly self-evident motivations for the men Sallust presents as incorrigible villains, and we may also compare his view of history to Cicero's; for even though they were of like opinion, Cicero tends to be more equitable in his explanations.
This difference between the two authors rather perfectly encapsulates the difference between them as men, and the central point of their disagreement. Cicero was a pacifier, a placator, but one of enough skill and vigor to change his opponent's course in the midst of deference. We might expect him to be in perfect agreement with Ben Franklin who, when once asked for advice by Thomas Jefferson, is supposed to have said "never disagree with anyone".
Sallust, on the other hand, was an incurable idealist. We are treated to long passages on the particular moral qualities a man ought to have and how Sallust's opponents lack them and how Sallust's friends all have them. There is a constant sense of injustice being perpetrated throughout the politic sphere, but it is always by Sallust's political and ideological enemies.
Though the reader rarely doubts such depravity and greed went on, Sallust's self righteous displays of humble innocence strike as false. His history is not informed enough to serve us--indeed, it is filled with errors in dates, places, and people. But neither is his rhetoric so impressive that it saves his tract from being more than the lamentations of a man who retired to complain for posterity's sake.
As a historical view, he is useful, but moreso within the context of other writers....more
Sallust had a long political career, siding with the populists, who would eventually become the triumvirate of Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey. In many waSallust had a long political career, siding with the populists, who would eventually become the triumvirate of Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey. In many ways, Sallust's history resembles Caesar's memoirs twenty years later, but Caesar's biases are much more difficult to ferret out. If Sallust had been a more clever man, we might have taken his word for it and entered his works as pure history, but his bias is so evident that we can almost fill out the rest of the story by it's absence.
There are fairly self-evident motivations for the men Sallust presents as incorrigible villains, and we may also compare his view of history to Cicero's; for even though they were of like opinion, Cicero tends to be more equitable in his explanations.
This difference between the two authors rather perfectly encapsulates the difference between them as men, and the central point of their disagreement. Cicero was a pacifier, a placator, but one of enough skill and vigor to change his opponent's course in the midst of deference. We might expect him to be in perfect agreement with Ben Franklin who, when once asked for advice by Thomas Jefferson, is supposed to have said "never disagree with anyone".
Sallust, on the other hand, was an incurable idealist. We are treated to long passages on the particular moral qualities a man ought to have and how Sallust's opponents lack them and how Sallust's friends all have them. There is a constant sense of injustice being perpetrated throughout the politic sphere, but it is always by Sallust's political and ideological enemies.
Though the reader rarely doubts such depravity and greed went on, Sallust's self righteous displays of humble innocence strike as false. His history is not informed enough to serve us--indeed, it is filled with errors in dates, places, and people. But neither is his rhetoric so impressive that it saves his tract from being more than the lamentations of a man who retired to complain for posterity's sake.
As a historical view, he is useful, but moreso within the context of other writers....more
J.G. Keely
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